I won’t lie, usually Christmas is my favorite time of year. Something about the music, getting to see all my family, and trying to find inventive ways to make friends and family happy through gifts always cheers me up. Never really had the money to go all out, but the spirit was there.

This year I just do not care. Usually I listen to dozens of hours of Christmas music and this year it is less than 2 hours so far. I’m not looking forward to giving or receiving gifts; it just feels so formulaic and rabidly consumerist. My usual comfort movies hold no interest for me. I’d skip it if I could. And all of that was before my grandmother died this past Saturday.

I had actually assumed they stopped supporting it so I kept mine unplugged for a year or two. Turned it on the other day on a whim and was surprised by having to wait on a new update.

Contrary to my usual tendencies, I was not a patient gamer with Survivor. I got it on PS5 the week it released, if I remember correctly. The performance issues were surprising (although actually still better on release than Fallen Order was), but other than that the game was an improvement for me in every way. Once a few patches came out improving stability, it completely superseded the original.

Edit: And I’m glad to hear it runs well enough on PC now; once I upgrade my GPU I may watch for a sale and double dip.

Even the people I know that are otherwise relatively tech savvy don’t do this.

Not to say it’s a good operating system, though.

The novel (written by Andrew Robinson) A Stitch in Time also confirms this physical attraction, if not specific examples of physical affection.

Most of what I have printed with it the 0.2 mm nozzle is filament swatches with detailed info “engraved” into them. I tried to do a larger detailed piece with it, but the model wasn’t print-ready and I made thin spaghetti instead.

That’s exactly what I got, and it has worked really well so far. I haven’t tried printing any minis yet (although I was thinking of trying one of FatDragon’s next weekend), so thank you for the link.

Had to do a deep dive into this group for my father once and came to the conclusion that they diverged greatly from the type of music I enjoy once they added that Fred Durst sounding mf to the band permanently. Their general sound is fantastic, though.

I went with the A1 mini while it was (actually still is) $200 on their website. That’s about as much as we spent on our sewing machine gathering dust, a bit more than our vinyl cutter doing the same, and around the same as I’ve invested so far in mini painting.

To be fair to me, I have so far kept up with the miniature painting.

I have a tendency to get into hobbies for a month or so and then drop them, too, so it being easy to set up and use should help me stick with it a bit more. The relatively low initial investment should soften the blow if I do drop it, too.

Just downloaded all of his sample models and bought another 5 on top of that. I wish that sand worm came with assembly instructions, but he’s getting built one way or another.

I actually just found his channel a couple days ago. I haven’t looked too much more into him, but his designs look great. Thank you for the recommendation!

They did. The nozzle actually arrived days before the printer, which was somewhat funny. I plan on trying it out a bit tomorrow.

That’s exactly what I decided to go with. Looking forward to learning

Do you think a cigar shop would be a good local way to find at least the desiccant? Thank you for the advice.

My space to work is not extremely well ventilated, and my cats could get in if a door is properly closed, so I’m leaning heavily against resin. I understand 3D printing is not without its risks no matter what material or type you use, but resin seems to be more than I can handle in my current setup. In several years, potentially in a new house with a garage, I may reconsider.

Its good to hear another recommendation for this one. It sounds like a good one.

Bambu Studio does appear to be open source and available on Linux, though, which were my first concerns. I’m not sure I would need to switch to Klipper or something similar in that case even if I could.

The results from resin printers look fantastic. My only work area is inside with cats, so I’m concerned about ventilation and contamination (especially since shutting them out of the room will reduce ventilation further). Also, miniatures are just one of the things I wanted to make. Planters, cross stitch hoops and tools, and those neat sectional fidget toys are all things I plan to make, and it seems resin isn’t ideal for those. I don’t mind sanding the result to make it smoother, and I understand the results won’t be as high detail as a purchased miniature when I do make them.

I have not yet learned much about stepper motors vs other options, but otherwise it sounds like the main thing that has changed in this price range is an increased number of valid options in it.

Yep, right there. Missed it entirely. Haha.

That model appears to be the most frequently recommended one for beginners, from my couple hours of research. Is it just the ease of use, or is the quality there, too?

I looked into resin briefly, but I don’t think my work area would be able to be ventilated enough for it to be safe from what I have seen.

I don’t mind tinkering, as long as I can find the info to help do so somewhere.